


Foreshadowing the Storm

by whitefang (radialarch)



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Extended Metaphor, Gen, Other, Weather, a bit of history; physics; mythology; astronomy, find the blog post titles!
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-03-26
Updated: 2012-03-26
Packaged: 2017-11-02 13:46:04
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,070
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/369641
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/radialarch/pseuds/whitefang
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sherlock is the storm John's been waiting for.</p><p>Extended metaphor based on John's <a href="http://johnwatsonblog.co.uk">blog</a> post titles.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Foreshadowing the Storm

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks to [aderyn](http://archiveofourown.org/users/aderyn) for making me think about storms, Kitkat McRaebs for patiently listening to me agonise over this piece, and [Riza](http://archiveofourown.org/users/Riza) for beta-work (and fighting the semicolons when I gave up).

When John Watson says ‘ **Nothing** happens to me’ – when he despairs at the **pointless** – what he doesn’t realise is that the hollowness in his chest is the hush before a wild summer rainstorm, a tense, expectant silence, and soon the waters will fall upon him in a shock of invigorating rush.

Rebirth.

He doesn’t know (when, or where, or what, or **how** ), but it’s coming, the cold front chasing after warm, then there will come the thunder, electricity leaping upwards in glee, and in the midst of everything will be John, **happy** , revelling in the chaos. ( **Now** ’s not the time. But wait just a little longer.)

And when the torrent bursts at last, the floodgates open, John will tip up his head skywards and open his mouth, catching the cool, clean raindrops: **drinks** for the man who dreams of the desert.

But not yet.

So John Watson pulls open a drawer and stares, contemplatively, at a trusted service weapon with its **serial** number filed off, causing a disturbance in the atmosphere, an uneasy stirring, because **suicide** is not an option; the storm is coming.

( _Wait_.)

The day will come, at last: a chance encounter with a friend, an introduction to a **strange** man that’s over in a flash ( _lightning, travelling at 61 metres per second_ ). But the **meeting** will linger in John’s mind, a charred imprint and a last wisp of smoke. Then John will wonder, and wonder at his wonder, a **new** sensation for his weary thoughts.

That, then, will be the creation of a branch point1, when John Watson falls down the rabbit-hole and lands firmly in the universe of a singularity: difficult **flatmate** , brilliant detective, genuine friend. And if he’s the hurricane then John is at the centre of it all, calm and steady, and, well, it’s not a **secret** that opposites attract. (Unlike electric charges there are no magnetic monopoles – always in pairs.)

(But this is no **code**.)

Still, this hasn’t happened yet, the tempest has not yet broken, and John’s in a bedsit jolting awake from flickering nightmares, letting out harsh breaths and hating the tremors in his limbs, generated from some stubborn, intractable corner of his mind. His **study** is loneliness, not genius.

The earth turns; the dawn stains the horizon.

( _So wait_.)

There will come the day when a **pink** phone will inspire unease – then fear. There will be a time when the glitter of **diamonds** makes the headlines beside the smile of the devil. There will be instants – soft words and hard gazes – that last longer than they ought to; and maybe **forever** isn't so far beyond reach, after all.

The rains will come and colour the landscape green, raising bright words and angry **rants** and breath-stopping panic; but the point is, when the consulting detective’s involved there is no neutrality (not even a chance), only love or hate – and **for your information** John Watson is not a man made for hating.

But this hasn’t started. Yet.

The downpour is gaining strength and will blow in abruptly with the northward breeze, but John’s not a sailor; he’s **blind** to the gathering clouds, the heavy portent crackling overhead. Perhaps if he knew he’d look upward, grinning, and welcome the whirlwind to his side. (Some cosmic being chuckles and allots John the patience he needs. But this is not the act of a **banker** , keeping score – only an encouragement, and a blessing.)

John has the tools but not the man. He has no idea about the forecast in his future, that the air around him is nearly saturated with potential, that vapour is slowly condensing around dust in the troposphere2, that it’s only a matter of time before the pull of gravity proves too **great** – and then there will come soft rains3.

Falling, awaking, renewing.

Captain John Watson, formerly of the Fifth Northumberland Fusiliers, is going to be reincarnated, baptised in a fury of water and wind, and this is not a **game** (or maybe it is), but there are still second chances, other beginnings.

( _Wait; one more breath, one more dream_.)

But John reaches for the gun. **Quick** , you snarl of entropy, you blur of exasperation, for the love of God! (Is it possible to rush jet streams, the drift of a nimbus cloud?) Because tonight’s a danger night, and no one’s bothered to **update** the doctor that he is necessary, as soon as the flood strikes and the swirling liquid can capture him at last.

Tick of the clock; then the man shakes his head and lays the revolver back down. (Be still, heart. **Life goes on**.)

John Watson is unaware of his destiny. He doesn’t know that he is wanted ( _desperately_ ), that somewhere there’s a twister that’s whispering his name, and he’ll soon be whispering its name right back. All that’s missing is the touchdown.

‘Til that moment, then: for the present John falls back into uneasy sleep. John dreams of war, and the flashes aren’t just of armoured vehicles cutting through dust, but also of tired boys crammed into a **tilly** and railing against a madman4; lithe, swift ships blazing bright against an armada; a fierce backlash against the slow march of centurions: because John Watson possesses the soldier’s soul, and history is stirring to remind him that his duties aren’t quite over – that as the skies shiver and precipitation pours down ( _from earth to earth, the hydrologic cycle_ ), he will receive once more his orders.

Unbeknownst to John, the barometer is falling.

High above, in the night, Oceanus Procellarum gleams from the moon (Aristarchus ray shining, Copernicus, the **Briggs** crater5, all battle scars), and it’s not mere superstition that says a storm is coming, but stark, incontrovertible _truth_ – the roar of the ocean mingling with the roar of atmospheric tumult. Because John’s voyage was never meant to be a quiet **cruise** , was it? He needs the gale lashing at the waves, **terror** interspersed with elation, the manic cyclone of a man.

And the discord needs him right back.

 _Freak, **geek** , weirdo_, the barbs fly, cutting; even a force of nature needs appreciation sometimes. Good thing, then, that John’s willing to read his isopleths (-bars, -hyets, -nephs, -tachs)6 and serve as an **interpreter** as well. So learn to anticipate; to decipher; to signify. A weather map, **speckled** with symbols and landmarks – what might then be deduced about an enigma’s heart?

( _Close, so close. But not today_.)

John’s **blonde** * head is restless in slumber, but it does not entertain thoughts of one **Sherlock Holmes** , has no inkling of the turbulence that this man is poised to bring. Through the open window comes the precursor to rain: delicate droplets flecking the sheets like a calling card ( _a claiming_ ). In the morning John will blink his eyes open under the stream of sunlight, then gaze at the water, **baffled**. (No one has yet told him of the importance of the aqueous. It won’t take him long to learn.)

But this is not the day of that pivotal, fated (perhaps even fateful?) convergence, of the entwining of two futures into one, the day when John Watson becomes a storm chaser.

No, for tonight John has no memory of wild songs in the wind, nor of shock blankets and surprised laughter – for tonight he gasps, jerks fitfully awake, and the **Hat Man** stares from the opposite wall before dissolving back into shadow 7. And John shivers, the empty chill gnawing at his bones. (But who knows, the sudden temperature drop may just be the bow echo8, trailing a line of thunderstorms.)

The signs are aloft; the message seeks a receiver. And somewhere a **robin** is whistling a welcome to the rasp of thunder, heralding the arrival of the storm-cloud9.

But all’s not well. Yet.

 **Aluminium** has neither a well-defined fatigue limit10 nor the dull glow before it hits its melting point; and so may John snap, without warning. (Because this isn’t the existence that he’s meant to be leading, and that’s the reason for that psychosomatic limp and the heavy, listless way he leans upon a **crutch**.)

This is not a dilemma easily fixed – one cannot hurry a cloudbank **by royal** decree, nor fix an **appointment** for the two to meet, time and date pencilled neatly into a calendar. The capricious air currents bear their charge where they will, while the doctor remains unaware that change and deluge are waiting to greet him.

( _Wait. It won’t be long._ )

The warmth of the tropic ocean creates swiftly rising updrafts, and the rotation of the earth sets the convective complex spinning11 – observe as it grows, unfettered, to cataclysmic proportions. (And there are no Category **Six** hurricanes, of course, but oh, the winds are howling so.)

And here ( _at last_ ) approaches the break in the lull, the ferocity drawing near with a reverberating growl. Two centuries ago, **thatchers** would have prayed for the worth of their craft; in this age, steel-and-concrete hold a similar tension. The city buzzes like a fully-lit **Christmas** tree, and this is the evening of suspense—

Then John Watson will emerge from his unwanted den of safety and claim his fortune with a **happy** bark of laughter, because he hears the call, and answers.

And this blaze of danger in starting a **new year** is what he’s been seeking all along. (He can’t deny he’s missed it; his body tells the truth).

Then the union, **actually** , finally realised; and no one can ever guarantee a **happy** ending (this isn’t a fairy tale, and here the lessons are all-too-human), but at least these are **new** beginnings and a **year** that starts with sudden vitality.

Their story will be extraordinary, told many times over to both man and **woman** , set to the howl of **hounds** and quavering notes off a bow (and underneath it all, the restless rumble of wind); from London to **Baskerville** and back again, a very long journey—

To the bright-eyed being of a storm12, then, and John: a story yet **untitled**.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Footnotes: _This is not actually a multi-chaptered work._ But all the footnotes are in the next chapter, because...wow, there are a lot of them.
> 
> * Martin Freeman isn't, technically speaking, _blond_? Ah well. The truths you bend to fit a challenge.


	2. Footnotes

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> All the references you didn't know you wanted (or, I am too fond of Wikipedia)

1\. In the multiple universes theory, a branch point denotes the split when all outcomes of a decision spawn their own universes.

2\. Raindrops cannot form until the ambient water vapour finds a particle (dust; ice crystals; that kind of thing) to condense onto. The troposphere is the first layer of the atmosphere (extending between 7 and 20 km above ground), and is where almost all weather-events take place.

3\. Sara Teasdale, “There Will Come Soft Rains”

4\. A tilly is a “utility vehicle” used by British soldiers in WWII. (Then the madman in question is, of course, Hitler.)

5\. Oceanus Procellarum is a lunar mare (a dark, volcanic plain) whose name is literally “Ocean of Storms” – the superstition is that when you see it during the second quarter of the moon, bad weather cometh. It contains the Aristarchus, Copernicus, and Briggs craters. The first two are interesting in their own right; the last I’ve appropriated for my own purposes.

6\. Isobar: line of equal pressure; isohyet: equal precipitation; isoneph: equal cloud cover; isotach: equal wind speed.

7\. “The Hat Man”, reported as “cloaked and with a wide-brimmed hat”, is a particular manifestation of a shadow person; these are sometimes seen in the moment of waking or falling asleep and are generally felt to be creepy as heck. Heh. (Apologies for anyone unduly disturbed.)

8\. Bow echoes are named for the characteristic bow-pattern they form on the Doppler radar, and indicate the leading edge of a cold front. They generally bring with them squall lines or thunderstorms.

9\. In Norse mythology, robins are sacred to Thor (the god of thunder!) and are held to be “storm-cloud” birds. Also, bonus reference to Teasdale (again).

10\. The fatigue limit for a piece of metal is the upper limit of the force the metal can withstand repeatedly without breaking. As aluminium’s is ill-defined, Al will eventually break even under repeated application of very small forces (unlike, say, steel, which can last forever if you don’t push it too hard).

11\. Tropical storms are formed in this way; differences in pressure (most likely due to temperature) set up a convection current of air rising and falling, and then the spin of the earth induces a spin (anticlockwise in the northern hemisphere; clockwise in the south).

12\. “Bright-eyed” is one of Homer’s characteristic epithets for Athena, and that seems fits Sherlock quite well, too.


End file.
